#column parade

Watanabe already had the backing of thousands of rabid idol fans who were hungry from more, and Saki was a pretty popular member! Pre BiS she already had a name for herself as a cosplayer and model, apart of the Dolly-Style (or Dolly Kei) fashion community.

So… why not combine the two things Saki’s fanbase love her for into one to maximise the profit squeeze? The fusion of idols and otaku, enter… PLANIME/PLA2ME

Dressed like schoolboys at a sporting event in the year 3000, Saki was joined in late august 2014 by her new partner Mari Mizuta!

Mari already had a small but established fanbase as she used to perform as a solo idol under the name Izukoneko. She sound was very… electronic modern style technopop. If you’re familiar with solo idols, think Yufu Terashima (shoutout to leaving BiS!) but with significantly less budget.

They debuted together with the song “Plastic 2 Mercy” at Tokyo Idol Festival, and the music video released with the single was made of footage from that day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g75uL_YApIU

A far cry from BiS or even Mari’s solo work… Pla2me’s debut was drum machine heavy but with an almost synthpop twist on power-pop. The choreography for the song involved involves a lot of physical activity, unlike BiS songs with relatively simple choreo, Paprika now withstanding. Both girls are clearly using all of their strength and using all of that stage as much as they can.

Tokyo Idol Festival is, as you can guess, an idol festival. Typically for your regular idols (since alternative idols were still peeking through into the mainstream at this time), the kind that don’t headbang or have fans who engage in lunatic behaviour. Saki and Mari RAN from the stage, jumped the barrier and finished their performance in the middle of the crowd with a circle of fans around them pumping their fists and headbanging. Surprisingly there was no huge controversy surrounding this but the organisers weren’t happy. Idols aren’t meant to stage dive and fans aren’t meant to mosh even if you are an ex member of the legendary lineup of BiS. Saki encouraging un-idol like behaviour and fan misbehaviour at TIF would land her in some hot water in the future though, but we’ll get to that later~

So, Pla2me were off to a STRONG start and they were more than living up to their name too. The girls even cosplayed together!

They even performed as Ryuko and Mako!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWKNXspDDog

And if the love of anime and nerd culture wasn’t already enough, Pla2me also appeared in a Digimon game as promo for Plastic 2 Mercy:

See that incredibly blurry poster on the right there? That’s them! the other groups are other acts on T-Palette Records (the people releasing their songs in joint with WACK).

Pla2me started in late 2014 and they had a successful last quarter of the year, closing it with the emotional video to new song “UNIT”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8s4TjEUh94

Still their fresh power-pop inspired sound, UNIT is more of an emotional ballad where they talk about never wanting to leave each other, with the video being the two of them literally being chained together and climbing a mountain. 

In early 2015 the single was released proper, just like they said there’s no meaning if this unit can’t stay together… 

Well… Guess there’s no meaning then! Mari left.

Late into March, Mari was breaking up their unit. “Creative differences” were stated, but remember this isn’t BiS. Saki isn’t Pour Lui and Mari isn’t Yufu. The problem was that Mari lived in Osaka whereas Saki lived in Tokyo and Mari had to travel from Osaka to Tokyo and sleep at Saki’s apartment whenever they performed. Made worse by the fact that Pla2me weren’t getting booked in Osaka.  Saki felt bad about things, Mari had talked about how she was struggling and Saki said on her old blog she didn’t feel like she did enough to help her. But they’re still friends so no need to worry! And she still works as an idol albeit under a different group even to this day.

So, a hunt for new members began! Can’t perform as a solo idol if you only have 4 songs and one of them is about staying together with your friend! Watanabe announced that they’d be holding auditions for both girls AND boys. No boys passed the audition though so feminism wins once again.

Meet the new lineup! from left to right we have Maya Inukai, Miki Yamamachi, Saki Kamiya, Yua Yumeno and Ao Shigusawa! Pla2me was out, POP was in. standing for “Period Of Plastic 2 mercy”

Also spoilers Maya and Ao don’t survive. But they’re here for now!

Since Pla2me never released an album and they needed more promo than just a few solo shows and music videos here and there, POP came out with a full release relatively quickly called… POP!

If you’re an anime fan you’ll recognise this art style instantly: their album cover was drawn by Studio Trigger’s own SUSHIO! Turns out he’s actually a huge wack fan! He posts fanart of Gang Parade and BiSH on twitter too!

The album release was marked with a music video for “pretty pretty good”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K07xAFm7x-Y

How many idol groups debut their album by being hoisted from a crane in the middle of the night and being forced to sing while dangling hundreds of feet off the ground? The tradition of being un-idol like idols continues onwards. And yes the uniforms for this era were actually trash bags with chains.

Saki kind of makes it work honestly.

The above picture is actually from a now infamous event… remember Tokyo Idol Festival from last year? The new unit were performing there this year, three days prior to their album release! Remember how Saki managed to piss off the management with her stage diving and encouraging the fans to mosh? Well, there are more things that are basically forbidden at what would otherwise be a pop (not our kind) festival and Saki managed both herself break and encourage fans to break every last one of them.

“Mosh pits, excessive jumping, crowd surfing, touching audience members, removing shirts and throwing objects.”

If you’ve ever been to a rock show all of this might seem… commonplace! Which let’s be real when your fanbase is made up of fans of the disbanded alt-idol group who basically just said “fuck it” and removed any sense of decorum from being an idol they could, this is going to happen at your shows. The fans not only destroyed the stage but POP, notably Saki, helped them! BiSH were playing at the same festival too and their fans did similar things, which led to both groups getting ousted. Pity the janitor who had to pick up after these wild women~

While it’s a theory that Watanabe orchestrated this, as BiSH and their leader Aina the End encouraged similar behaviour albeit on a smaller scale, Saki acted of her own accord. The fans got rowdy and Saki got rowdier while knowing the consequences of this but did it anyway.

Even if this is a post BiS group, disciplinary action was still taken. Watanabe was probably not actually furious with Saki but she was indefinitely suspended from POP. The more time went on, the more pissed off fans were getting. This was Saki’s kingdom and they demanded an audience with their queen! 

Saki spent her time while barred from performing helping behind the scenes, effectively becoming a staff member. She helped with taking chekis (polaroid selfies) with other members while being unable to take them with fans herself. Fans were getting even more and more annoyed! So, watanabe gave her an ultimatum, she could rejoin POP…

…if she could complete a 24 hour 100km marathon!

Which sounds daunting but let’s be real, Saki is a young athletic woman. The choreography for Plastic 2 Mercy basically incites violence and you need to be in shape to be a model/cosplayer. There’s also the fact that during a BiS marathon in 2013, Saki was the only one that actually finished.

Saki finished her 100km jog with two hours to spare and returned to her royal court. Just in time to conveniently release their new single! The music video and promo shots of which all contained Saki despite the fact they would have had to be filmed and shot when she was “suspended”. Makes you think!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWOPysoZI2k

“Happy Lucky Kirakira Lucky” was another fast paced aggressive techno-post-power-pop (those are all real genres I promise) bop with a sugary sweet twist. The video shows off the choreography along with… some puppets! Drop some new music Miss Piggy, POP are here.

So, we end 2015 with some destruction, an album and new single! Just as Pla2me went to POP, they also went from strength to strength.

The next major release was another single: Queen of Pop!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnkR0oIYWGk 

Another release in their trademark sound which i’m running out of adjectives for, the music video is… I don’t know. There’s morph suits and faux religious symbolism. They had fun with it though!

As was the trend so far, new year, new name! POP were now GANG PARADE. Saki and Watanabe were toying with the idea of a name change and adding new members for a while, and the words that came up the most were “gang” and “parade” so hey let’s just stick them together! Time went by and the name would become more apt but for now: the next single.

“WE ARE the IDOL”

New uniforms, new hair for Saki but… the same sound! WE ARE the IDOL was still typical of a POP era song despite the name change. The music video however was more in tune with the direction they’d be travelling in creatively: it’s very theatrical and heartfelt with some very professional camerawork and cryptic messages written in English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFEIW0k_5u8

Shortly after, Ao’s time with Saki and friends came to a close. She had to withdraw from the group due to a lack of support from her family. We don’t know where she is now, but with or without her family’s support we can hope at least she’s having fun.

The heartbreak doesn’t end here though, Maya had to leave too for family reasons, though hers were more understandable. Her dad’s health had been declining and it was up to her to look after him. Gang Parade had her sisters, but her father needed her more.

Gang Parade as “Gang Parade” really starts here. Between the two members leaving, BiS had reformed and scouted new members. How is this relevant to Gang Parade you ask? Well, the girls who were talented but didn’t make the cut for BiS were placed into a sister group called… SiS. Creative, right? 

And of course everything went as planned and SiS to this day have a long career as BiS’ rivals and- just kidding! They disbanded after one show. They disbanded literally less than a single day after the show. Allegedly for their manager (the other manager, not Watanabe) mismanaging something or other.

The SiS girls didn’t become outright unemployed however, three of them were moved to Gang Parade (the fourth works at a clinic in Tokyo now and also entered a modelling contest. Honestly if my idol group broke up after about 12 hours i’d not want to continue as an idol either) and debuted almost right away!

But before the SiS girls were added, new girl Can Maika came along in early October. during Maika’s debut, moshing and stage diving were banned at Gang Parade lives but recording was 100% okay. If you know anything about Japanese music venues, this is genuinely incredibly rare and as a result basically every gang parade live gets posted on YouTube in about 4K HD where you can see the sweat dripping off of Saki’s head.

They also revealed that Gang Parade fans had their own name! Asobinin, which in English you could call… Players! Like a playboy but there’s no gender associated with it, so think a player of love, sleazy, likes to have fun more than they like to work, a layabout… a kind of immoral name for fans of the kind of immoral idols.

So of course now that we have a large troupe of girls, it should be time for an album right? Absolutely! Gang Parade’s “Barely Last” arrived shortly after:

Though if you can count you might notice that there’s a few girls missing… The album was recorded and the promo material all shot before the SiS girls arrived. That’s Can Maika in the orange there. She didn’t get to wear the new uniform for long because promo for the album basically started and ended in a flash, they couldn’t promo something with three of the members missing! The album didn’t even get any music videos.

If I had to describe the sound, it’s basically a stepping stone between the power-pop of POP to the chaos that would become Gang Parade’s trademark.

So a month later… Gang Parade was finally more in tune with how “Gang Parade” are now. To celebrate, they released Plastic 2 Mercy again in December of 2016 

Let’s meet the new girls! Please ignore Satan on the left there. From the left we have: dear leader Saki Kamiya (sporting the longest her haircut has been in about 3 years), the quirky and curious Yui Ga Dockson (who’s name is apart of the first thing Buddha said upon being born. “ I alone am honoured ”), the rich girl with a heart of gold: Coco Partin Coco (who’s name is a dick joke because tinco means cock), our old friend: Yua Yumeno, the gravure perfectionist who sure can: Can Maika, the adorable sea otter fanatic: Yuka “Yuyu” Terashima and squatting on the floor sporting the green highlights in her hair that haven’t left since: Miki Yamamachi! 

Plastic 2 Mercy even got another music video, featuring the girls making a nuisance of themselves in the streets and being coated in a plastic-like substance while spooning one another. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81rF2jZpB7g

So roll on 2017! Gang Parade are finally the “Gang Parade” they were destined to be and they started performing without a hitch and- just kidding again. This is a group run by an egomaniac remember.

Gang Parade were kicking off 2017 after a long period of touring (which they basically do constantly, GP are genuinely the hardest working WACK group) with a new single! “FOUL”! This also marks a period of… Dockson shaving off her eyebrows and painting new ones on with glitter. For somebody named after the Buddha talking about singularity and serenity she is certainly a deeply chaotic individual.

But chaos is fitting for Gang Parade! The song is slow but it’s heavier than they’ve done before, stepping from power-pop and fusing that with almost synth rock. The music video is a callback to “pretty pretty good”, starting in the same construction yard three of the girls were suspended from a crane in and ending with Saki shaving her hair off in a Tokyo backstreet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NCSt3dLug

The song is also the source of the phrase “body and 7soul”, which is a huge part of Gang Parade’s identity. Well until they add more girls and they have to rerecord it and change it to “body and 9soul” but that comes later.

If you’ve read “Know Your BiStory” the next part wont come as a surprise, but as a preface 2017 is where WACK as a company starts to get a little… wacky. A temporary rental trade of members was announced! Queen Saki was leaving her kingdom once again to go back to BiS in exchange for Aya Eightprince.

Of course the fans rioted just like when Saki was absent during the POP days and demanded th-I can’t keep pulling these bait and switches. Aya was welcomed to Gang Parade with open arms by both the fans and her new sisters!

In fact, Aya loved being in Gang Parade so much she actually talked about how much she hated being in BiS because of how disrespectful and rude the leader Pour Lui was to everyone - especially her. Gang Parade felt… right for Aya - and the fans felt so too! Of course everyone missed Saki but Aya’s presence in the chaos just worked well. She started touring around with them almost instantly and after a few months, it was time for a new single

Beyond the Mountain! Gang Parade had heartfelt ballads and fast paced songs before but this is #that song. The song that pierces your chest and makes you want to scream the lyrics while crying. About broken promises and broken hearts but, despite being left alone, you should smile. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdsASPb4l4Q

And of course promo for this included new member Miss Aya. That’s her on the bar stool looking curious. 

And what was Saki doing? On a single in her traded group too but also probably kissing Kika.

During the next few months, Gang Parade and BiS went on a joint tour together where it was announced the rental trade would be extended! Then in October, more label clownery happened and the shuffle unit/supergroup “SAiNT SEX” debuted with their only song. SAiNT SEX featured Aya, Saki, Miki and Yua along with various BiS and BiSH girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbRmVdd-Kk

Even while on a rental trade, the girls from both groups remained close with one another. For the time being.

After this it started to get a little more serious for Gang Parade in terms of promo: they were gearing up for a full album. Gang Parade’s first promo music video for the album was called… GANG PARADE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=100K-pSVWZM

The girls show off their new uniforms in a warehouse while dancing and well… it’s a good thing moshing was made forbidden at their shows because this song was their wildest to date. Aggressive synthy rock with a pre-chorus involving a lot of chanting which turns into an aria of screaming “GANG PARADE EVERYDAY”. Like i said, their most chaotic to date… until “IMINAI UTA” (pointless song) got a music video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQxb88zX2FA

Following in the footsteps of the last song’s harsh sound, this is that but turned up to 11. Electronic screeching mixed with nonsensical lyrics shouted at you and a music video that combines glitch art with vaporwave, their new album was destined to be their most extreme yet. And on stage? It always starts with Coco doing cartwheels.

https://i.gyazo.com/3a8932dd671668b3078ae9be69f584e7

A few days later? “GANG PARADE takes themselves higher!!” arrived

And the name was more than apt, Gang Parade had elevated themselves in sound, image and status. A far cry from the original bubbly drum heavy technopop that Pla2me started with, Gang Parade’s sound can now be described as “sheer chaos”. From Beyond the Mountain to Iminai Uta, they were here to make noise, play with their fanbase of players and just generally revel in anarchy.

They also took themselves higher with their status in the industry - Gang Parade were stepping out of the shadow of “ex BiS group led by Saki Kamiya” and were being written about just as “Gang Parade” - you can even find interviews from the time translated on the English Gang Parade fansite pretty pretty GANG (this advertisement is non-sponsored)!

At the very end of the year, the “Wack and Scrambles” album was released featuring SAiNT SEX. The album also came with voting codes so fans could vote for which members they would want to get a solo debut single. Since BiSH are the most popular wack group, Aina the End placed in first. Our favourite strange siren Yui Ga Dockson placed pretty low, in the band where members would have to eat something called “death sauce curry” - but she didn’t have to do that. Her punishment was a surprise for later~

Roll on 2018 and Gang Parade, now higher than ever, did the only thing you’d expect an idol group to do: new single and music video! Breaking the Road was here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRP-wmdG-fA

A continuation of their aggressive synth rock sound, Breaking the Road is high energy, fast paced… Everything you’d expect at this point! The music video also contains heartfelt messages from members in a serene beach setting~

The b-side to the single also received a video: Sushi Song! No guesses as to what it’s about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRTTvdrugQI

Meanwhile, back over in BiS, the girls were preparing for Pour Lui’s funeral graduation, marking the end of the trade between the two groups. Aya would go back to BiS, Saki would come back to Gang Parade and Lui would vanish into the ether. “WHOLE LOTTA LOVE” marked Aya’s comeback and “DiPROMiSE” heralded Saki’s departure.

So welcome home saki! The eight of clubs switched hands with the queen of hearts and gang parade continued on as their body and 7soul…

C’mon, this is a WACK timeline! Did you really think it would be that simple?

In march, the next WACK audition camp and exhibition took place. Various girls won and were placed into various groups. Gang Parade gained two new members: the gothic ice princess Usagi Tsukino and the 15 year old baby idol with a cute voice Haruna Bad Chiiiin! That’s four i’s in case you lose count!

There was also a contest which Can Maika lost so she’d have to change her stage name so! please welcome “Can GP Maika”. It’s not much of a punishment but hey, maybe cruelty can be matched with unusualness?

Just as they welcomed Aya with open arms, Tsukino and Haruna found their sisters instantly too. But not without a prank first, on their first day Dockson pretended to be an authoritarian leader with an iron fist! Sushio even drew fanart of it!

So what better way to introduce the new girls to their new fans than with a new single? A month later, “GANG 2″ dropped!

So from the bottom left we have Miki, Yuyu, Coco, Dockson, Yua, Haruna, Saki, Maika and Tsukino sitting in the bottom right.

GANG 2′s sound was closer to Beyond the Mountain than any of their more recent singles more aggressive sounds. It’s still got pounding synths and drum machines but it’s the kind of pounding that matches your heart and not your feet dancing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyaEby0Wu2U

The video depicts Saki as a holographic ghost who regains her physical form, rejoining Gang Parade after having been gone for so long.

The b-side recieved a video too: meet the slightly culturally insensitive love-letter known as “Lai Le”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB5hx0hkioE

Next up in June we finally get to Dockson’s “punishment”. While she didn’t win the election for the solo single, she was getting one anyway! “Now how is that a punishment” you ask? Well! It’s a throwback to the 90′s era of Japan’s eurobeat inspired techno-pop but with a twist! The lyrics are about being horny and involve chanting “HUGE COCK”. Also they made her wear ganguro makeup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CytBUpNV-k

Honestly? The song is good. It’s dancey and fun but I think it’s understandable why somebody wouldn’t want to get up on stage and hoot about getting busted in for about 4 minutes. Dockson even had to perform it live a few times, and during one special performance she bought a $1 magician’s wand off of Amazon that turns into a bouquet of flowers when you tug on it. Fans loved it and she hasn’t had to don the questionable makeup since!

The month after, more WACK clownery happened again. A new shuffle unit/supergroup debuted: The HOLY SHiTS! Thankfully the only gang parade girl they managed to torture with this was Maika. Though unluckily for her, the concept was “you have to eat fake excrement from a toilet while singing over a dance track that had a production budget of about $5″.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQpxOBB3ma4

It’s awful and we’re just going to pretend it never happened. Thanks.

August comes along, and it’s new single time once again. The anthem for going against the pain and continuing on even in bad circumstances! No, not the BiS song, Gang Parade got their own song with a similar theme: CAN’T STOP!

The music video shows our favourite body and 9soul pushing against a wall with their heads seemingly without any luck before the wall shatters and they all walk together, as friends, as one cohesive unit, as GANG PARADE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0pEQFo3y78

Gang Parade then embarked on their next tour, which ended with a tour final at Zepp Tokyo where they announced that they’d have a new album out in the first weeks of 2019: LAST GANG PARADE 

Of course, this name worried a lot of fans. Were Gang Parade breaking up? What did last mean? Was this Saki’s graduation? What was Watanabe up to? Many other fans pointed out that the “last” could be the “last” in “last night” or “last man standing” which quelled some fears, but fans continued to talk and gossip

And in-between the announcement and album release, the tour final was released as a special blu ray which included re-recordings of old songs with the current lineup. Saki took Aya’s spot on songs from “Gang Parade takes themselves higher!!” and of course the two new girls got their share too. And they finally chant “body and 9soul” instead of 7 in FOUL.

Now for a little detour… instead of Gang Parade we’re going to talk about you!

That’s right! Saki is more than aware that she has asobinin cheering from overseas! The first leader of a WACK group to acknowledge that she has English speaking fans. maybe she reads pretty pretty GANG~

However, she isn’t the first member. International asobinin managed to figure out that Coco uses a third party Twitter application to make private lists and a few lucky fans are more than likely on it, because she keeps liking tweets about her that don’t mention her by name that can be vanity searched and her tweets aren’t tweeted from a standard twitter app.  Coco even speaks a little English too! At a promotional live outside of a giant Gundam statue, Coco tried to engage with tourists by introducing Gang parade to an international audience in English. But, a member of the pretty pretty GANG fan community was there and the tourists… Were Spanish. Whoops! Thank you for thinking about us anyway Coco!

In the runup to Last Gang Parade’s release, a week of promo started with a surprise video drop: Yoru Kurai Yume (Night’s Dark Dream)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts8KnDkrrKI&

Written by Yua and Haruna, even with composition by Haruna, the song and video reference… Edo Period prostitutes! Do Haruna’s parents know what she writes about? The video even ebbs onto the more gravure side of idol, with minimal appearances from the GP girls in lieu of some genuine working girls on their walk around a red light district. A relatively laid back sound in contrast to the high energy they’re known for, the song is a standout on the album and unlike the rest of the promo tracks to come.

Over the course of the week, fast paced aggressive bops like “Jealousy Marionette” dropped in addition to emotional heart-pounders like “Message” on Soundcloud until New Year’s Eve… the video to LAST!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y932g_4QfOE

With motifs taken from primal. by BiS, LAST was set to become Gang Parade’s trademark song next to Plastic 2 Mercy. In a similar vein to Beyond the Mountain and CAN’T STOP, LAST deals with the struggle of moving forward against it all, making it clear that the “last” in “Last Gang Parade” is about how long you’ve lasted and how proud you should be.

With the girls all lifting each other’s spirits when things go wrong and generally playing together, the video is a heartwarming playground culminating in the phrase “making a new chaos” floating above them while they run around a football pitch.

And then a few weeks later in 2019, LAST GANG PARADE finally arrives proper

Gang Parade were closer as a sisterhood than ever, going from taking themselves higher to standing tall on a peak beyond the mountain. They were at the top of their game, one of the hardest working and strongest units under WACK.

But then… the second meaning of “LAST” finally came to light…

Just kidding! Not every surprise on behalf of Watanabe has to be awful!

On the first day of the ggWACK tour, a tour celebrating all of WACK’S major groups, Gang Parade announced that they were getting a MAJOR LABEL DEBUT! A sub label under Universal Japan created just for them: Fuelled by Mentaiko! Who says when you’re at the top the only way is down? Gang Parade were continuing to go higher and higher, they can’t stop. The “last” was also their last indie label release! As a surprise and a goodbye to T-Palette Records and their manager, the album contained a hidden bonus track called “PALET”

And that’s the history of Gang Parade! From a badly behaved cosplay duo stage diving over drum machine beats to a power-pop unit who trash the stage to a ragtag band of sisters here to incite a new form of chaos, the ashes of BiS’ legendary lineup had became something new entirely. 

The song starts with with the call “Yeah yeah!! We won’t lose! HEY HEY!! We’ll do the unexpected!”, that resembles QUEEN OF POP’s upbeat and fun sound. The song reminds us of the groups history full of obstacles that, no matter how hard they were, served to make them stronger. Falling and reviving many times with several lineup changes made each member wiser, knowing that living might be hard but you have to do something about it. Giving up on just waiting and taking action, even if things don’t go well like in movies, they’ll still make it go smoothly like in a drama, doing the impossible becomes real.

The chorus brings the essence of GANG PARADE: finding the answer as necessary, no matter how many times they were tested. “HEY HEY it’s alright”, because they are used to it and more importantly, welcoming everything that comes their way to make them stronger. And with that new attitude of embracing the hardships and acting on them, a BRAND NEW PARADE is born.

The lyrics might reflect the group’s attitude as part of their history, but also can be interpreted and understood by anyone who is looking for a new perspective in life. In this sense we have the music video, with their first story oriented MV featuring a lot of actors and a story with a lot of meaning.

The main character, Tsuno, is seen talking to his friend about games when a girl he likes enters the classroom and he gets distracted. His friend asks him if he’s listening, to which he replies yes but then something starts to appear in his forehead. Whatever it is, it’s not good, and the girls (dressed as the coolest and cutest galaxy demons) let us know that. Tsuno borrows his friend’s game and immerses himself, thinking about that and the girl he likes, Ayami. When a popular guy in the class invites Tsuno to a night pool party, we can see how Tsuno and his friend’s relationship is not going well. During the party, after finally feeling accepted by others, Tsuno sees Ayami and when she walks past him towards the popular guy he can feel his heart break. Then we see Ayami, who we thought was popular and confident, acting shy and awkward near the popular guy, and being rejected before she could really say anything. Whatever appeared in Tsuno’s forehead starts to grow and what is most surprising, Ayami also has one. He make his way towards her and both are embraced in horns, even though no one seems to notice.

Then, in the middle of the classroom our main characters meet the members who sing to them about finding the right answer, solving the hard questions and doing something about it.

Back in the pool Tsuno tells Ayami exactly that, she has to do something or things will stay the same. Ayami gathers courage and tries again, making her forehead horn fall. Tsuno watches and feels happy for her, but knows he must do the same. On the next day he approaches his friend, thanking him for the game but telling him it was boring to play alone. His friend starts talking to him again about the main character of the manga he’s been reading coming back and that’s when Tsuno’s horn finally falls too. In the end Ayami is seen picking it up and the music video ends.

The horns, even though a clear reference to FLCL, also represent everyone’s complexes and insecurities. They are there, like a giant sign in our foreheads, no one else sees it but ourselves and those who pay close attention, like Tsuno’s friend who tries to help him with a band-aid. Unfortunately, insecurities aren’t something you can just cover and pretend that don’t exist.

When we’re overwhelmed with those insecurities, they grow and take us over and that’s when we’re forced to connect to ourselves and our truths to solve the questions that paralyze us.

Finally, we have the promotion photos and CD cover. For the promo posters the members appear to be naked under a red cloth, for the cover the same red cloth seems to be covering something. The CD cover points to the reveal of something new (perhaps the new member Naruha World?) and since with the major debut a new start line begins, the posters symbolize them being born as a new group.

For the first time in a while, GANG PARADE felt like they were fully comfortable as a group. This, however, was about tho change.

As part of what would become a standard practice in a series of attempts to generate quick, shocking headlines (that, personally, seem like a poorly executed version of the way OG BiS constantly changed members due to different circumstances), early 2017 saw Watanabe (manager of the aptly named WACK agency) announce the first rental trade between members of two of the groups under his management. This trade would see seasoned veteran Kamiya Saki return to her original home in BiS, in exchange for the lovely rookie Aya Eight Prince. It didn’t take long before this announcement raised some eyebrows. After all, GANG PARADE was just finally feeling like they had found their ground, and the trade meant Saki -who was not only the groups’ original and most recognized member but also regarded as their leader- would leave while the promotional events for FOUL were still going on; and Aya had not only just joined BiS, but she also seemed to be the member who struggled the most with cementing herself within the group -beyond being regarded as a pretty (dumb) girl who could carry a tune- so it wasn’t hard to see why people considered this decision as one that would, once again, hinder things for GP. It wouldn’t be long before everyone, myself included, was proven wrong.

From her first recorded performance of FOUL available, which has Aya’s hair styled in the girliest pair of twintails while also wearing Saki’s old costume, you could tell things were different. But different wasn’t necessarily bad, this new lineup had lost Saki, but this would quickly translate into a window for fans to fully pay attention to the other members, who (after losing their de facto leader) would grow up to become diverse and confident performers on their own terms. In Aya’s case, GANG PARADE would be the group where she would mature not only as a vocalist but also in terms of how much she puts into everything she does as an idol.

If you go back and check interviews released while the trade was still going on, one of the things that are a constant about Aya is how determined she is to put her everything into making things work. From her regret at having reacted to the trade announcement the way she did to her desire to bring balance to her new group, this earnestness made it easy, both for fans and for other members, to immediately welcome Aya with arms wide open. While this all happened, GP did nothing but keep improving as a group.

This development quickly translated to the stage, with each live performance being a testament of how much fun Aya had as a GANG PARADE member (and how much joy her presence brought both to asobinin and to the other members), but it would be on their first release after the trade started that this would all come to form once Beyond the Mountain was released.

Beyond the Mountain took right where FOUL had left and combined it with everything Aya and the other members had learned. Resulting in what’s simply one of the group’s best songs. The single was a success, but it also begged the question “what happens with the trade now?”. Both BiS and GP had their fun and they both released a single under the trade, so it made sense to think that was just the end of it, right? Wrong! After a particularly odd silent period, Watanabe simple took to Twitter to announce the rental trade had been “indefinitely suspended” without any kind of further comment on what this meant.

After a triumphant single, which started the group’s rise in popularity (to the point of it entering the charts a second time when BREAKING THE ROAD was also charting), and an announcement that offered a glimpse of hope regarding the group’s permanent lineup, GP would have two follow up releases (an album and a collaboration single) that would contribute to cementing Aya’s presence in GANG PARADE, while also showcasing a group that kept working its hardest and evolving with each live performance.

The album, aptly titled GANG PARADE takes themselves higher!! compiled ten songs, including new recordings of songs that originally included Saki, which showcase the group at their most energetic, easily going from catchy and playful tracks (seriously, listen to this performance of Are you kidding? if you ever need a reminder of the GP brand of fun!) to more mellow numbers like CAR RADIO or Futsuu no Nichijou. The album’s highest point, however, was the inclusion of the group’s own self-titled track. As it was the case with Beyond the Mountain, GANG PARADE (the song) saw Aya delivering the song’s big vocal solo (a right she earned through her hard work in live shows) and almost (but not quite) looking like the group’s new leader.

Aya’s newfound leader-but-not-really position would be showcased once again during the release of WACK IS FXXK, which was performed by WACK super group SAiNT SEX. The collaboration single, featuring not only Aya, Yua, and Miki, but also standout members of both BiS (which was represented by legendary members Pour Lui and Kamiya Saki), and BiSH (obviously represented by Aina the End (of BiSH fame!) and everyone’s favorite little sister (ugh) Ayuni D). The song is another instance of WACK’s trademark pop-punk sound, but it was interesting to see the members of the three groups interact. In Aya’s case, the fact that she got the most lines out of all the featured GP members, all while harmonizing and sharing lines with Pour Lui and Aina the End, really made it feel like she was in charge of leading the three GANG PARADE members featured in this release. However, contrary to what happened in the case of both BiS and BiSH, GP didn’t seem to really rely on the figure of a leader anymore, with all members bringing something so different to the table, their music and performances felt just perfectly balanced.

Having Aya representing GANG PARADE along its two oldest members (while Saki seemed to do the exact same thing in BiS) really made it feel like this was a permanent change. However, we all know by now how things turned out…

No matter how you looked at things, everything seemed to point Aya was meant to be a permanent GANG PARADE member. Once again, and this time to everyone’s chagrin, this feeling was just about to be proven wrong. WACK is FXXK was quickly followed by the release of WACK & SCRAMBLES WORKS, a commemorative release meant to celebrate the company’s third anniversary, and features shuffle units covering several tracks produced by Matsukuma Kenta. The release culminated in the first edition of the WACK no FES on December 8th. The festival served as a showcase of all four WACK groups, and it culminated in the bitter announcement that the rental trade was being called off, which meant both Aya and Saki would be returning to their respective groups.

With the news of the trade coming to an end still fresh, 2018 dawned upon GP fans, and with it came a short series of promotional events, the culmination of a joint tour with BiS, and a third and final release with Aya under the group: BREAKING THE ROAD. This third single featured the usual high-energy synth-rock sound that is a staple of the group by now, and it had the members sing about always remaining together, even if some of them were to go on different paths. As what could be a small, final tribute to her time in the group, the song closes off with Aya singing the last solo line. That final solo line would be followed by a final one man live show, which would end with Aya screaming “I love GANG PARADE!” at the top of her lungs.

Said live show would be followed by a series of final interviews, during which fans would learn new bits about the group, how much they had learned about each other during the trade, and how their connection with Aya changed the entire group’s dynamic. Even if her departure was sad, there was something different about all the members. They were close, sure, but they were also far more confident. To the point of Coco Partin Coco openly expressing her frustrations at BiSH getting to continue their activities as the 6-member formation that saw their popularity rise (and which, to this day, remains intact) while they had no option but to let Aya — who had really found herself as an idol— go. It almost felt like Saki was returning to a group that no longer needed her to lead them, but that would welcome her nonetheless.

Despite everyone’s feelings, a decision had been made, and on March 4th, Aya and Saki shook hands as a sign that things were the way they originally were. According to this -incredibly charming- fan report, Aya performed a grand total of 171 live shows with GANG PARADE. If this same report is to go by, this time not only marked the beginning of the group’s newfound popularity but it also gave the fans a clearer sense of who’s who among the group, with the member’s interactions with Aya allowing asobinin to identify the groups natural vocalists, moodmakers, visuals, and many other things.

Looking back into all this, it might sound a bit pretentious to think of Aya as a catalyst for these changes. But even if she didn’t willingly end up in GP, her presence replacing Saki’s was what allowed the other members to share the main spotlight, and that’s one of the things that makes the group stand out the way it does. Even with Saki back, and even with the addition of two new members, I think it’s safe to say GANG PARADE wouldn’t have been able to take themselves higher hadn’t each member learned that they have something unique that makes the group be the unique entity it currently is.